


Trinkets

by RedSummerRose



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, might be some light Wanda/Vision if you squint, so much found family bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 07:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13118553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSummerRose/pseuds/RedSummerRose
Summary: A home is made up of so many things, and this is just a few. Done for the Maximoff Fic Exchange 2017.





	Trinkets

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [MaximoffFicExchange2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/MaximoffFicExchange2017) collection. 



> A look at some of the things I thought would be in Wanda's room at the compound and how they got there.

The first thing Wanda received was the picture.

SHIELD gave her everything Pietro had on him in Novi Grad, the little that couldn’t be entrusted to anyone else. This little scrap of paper made it through eight years of homelessness and two years of experiments, but now it was another reminder that the people who loved her were gone. It left a hole in her heart that felt like it would never heal.  

The snapshot was careworn from months and years of handling, corners worn down to soft, white paper, a fine crease across the middle from constant refolding. Pietro fished it out of the ruins of their home and kept it ever since. In those first hours after the battle, Wanda found herself smoothing out the same edges her brother once traced. It was all she could do to keep from breaking.

Even after settling into the New Avengers compound, there were bad days. Mornings when nightmares were filled with the horrible moments of her brother’s death, the agonizing feeling of waiting for a bomb to explode. When she felt the world would swallow her in despair if she left her bed. On those days, Wanda withdrew the picture from her bedside table, cradling it just as carefully as Pietro did.

The occasion where it was taken escapes her, what’s important is the emotion behind it. Her parents’ laughter, Pietro’s teasing, the joy she used to feel, having those people around her. It hurts sometimes, but she needs to remember it. Not only for them, but for herself, to remind her of how life could be.

Those days are hard, but they’re easier with something to cling to, a little picture to keep everything together. She comes back from training one day, only to see the photo pressed into a silver frame, glinting bright in a pale patch of sunlight. It’s not clear who did it, but Wanda appreciates the gesture, regardless.

* * *

 

The first few weeks are difficult for everyone. Even though they’ve worked together before, it’s always been in different instances, and team dynamics matter when it comes to saving the world. Wanda adjusts in fits and starts, and the rest of the team moves along with her.

Steve is easier to be around than she first assumed. Underneath the Captain America persona is a genuinely good man, trying to do what he can for others. She finds herself surprised by a quiet personality and a dry sense of humor, not to mention the thought that Steve is a rather skilled artist. More often than not on days off, she finds him sketching something in one of the common areas, whether it’s an image from his past, one of their fellow Avengers, or whatever bird has landed outside the massive windows. Either way, Wanda feels comforted by the single minded focus her powers pull on when he’s working. More often than not, they’ll sit in companionable silence, her reading and him drawing. The peace is welcome in the midst of the compound’s usual hustle and bustle.

It’s sometime into the second month of being an Avenger that Steve finally feels comfortable asking her about her past. Or more precisely, about Pietro. That’s still a painful spot, she doubts it’ll ever be anything else, but something in her appreciates the unspoken understanding of her grief. Her teammates don’t pry where they shouldn’t and something in her suspects it’s because they all have similar wounds to match.

“Where did you pick up a poetry habit?” He asks, after three different Tennyson collections make an appearance on the common room coffee table. Wanda freezes, her hand halfway to _The Lady of Shalott,_ before she can decide on an answer. Steve waits patiently, still working on his latest sketch. For a moment, all that fills the space is the skritch-skritch-skritch of his pencil.

“My father used to read them aloud. And then when we were old enough, we read them to him.” She has hazy memories of a night-light casting shadows over an otherwise darkened room, a rumbling voice easing through words in different accents, different styles of prose. A warmth kindles in her chest and Wanda lets it fill the holes in her heart, if only momentarily.

“Your brother liked them too?” The pencil stops moving and he looks up, gauging her reaction to the question, checking if he’s crossed a line somewhere.

“Yes, the new words, new languages. A lot of the books were in Cyrillic or German. Pietro liked--” A marble shaped lump stuck in her throat, and for a moment, she couldn’t speak. The new tenses always knocked everything off kilter. It was a simple, cruel reminder that her brother wasn’t there anymore.

“Wanda, hey.” Steve’s voice is gentle, careful. There is a hand on hers, the touch slightly ashy from bits of charcoal. “He’s still your brother, and it’s okay to miss him.”  

That’s all it takes to push tears to Wanda’s eyes, although she tries her best to blink them back. She hasn’t let herself cry in front of anyone since Ultron, and that streak isn't about to break now.  

“Have you read Dylan Thomas?” Steve asks suddenly, and while the sudden turn in conversation is abrupt, she can’t help feeling grateful for it. Her hair bobs as she shakes her head, dark waves momentarily shielding her expression.

“I read some of his stuff after the ice. My Ma would have liked him, I think. You should look up his work when you’re done with this.” He nods at the book on the table, and Wanda returns the gesture. He squeezes her hand again, before returning to companionable quiet, until the sky begins to darken, and the scents of dinner pull them away.

It’s a few days later that Wanda finds the little box outside her door. Nestled in shreds of paper is a small blue book, gold lettering stamped along the spine.

_The Collective Works of Dylan Thomas._

Underneath that though, is something even better. Framed in glass and dark wood is a sketch of Pietro. His speed shows in every line of the drawing, even in standing still she can feel his impatience coming off the page.

Really there’s only one person it could have come from. The signature in one corner, as well as a handwritten note tucked into the book confirms her suspicions.

 

_A reminder that no matter what, your brother’s with you._

_P.S, enjoy the book._

_P.P.S I think you’ll find the first poem interesting. Let me know what you think._

_Steve._

 

It takes her a moment, but after brushing away tears, Wanda slips back into her room, settling into an armchair with the book in one hand, and the sketch in the other.

 _“_ Do not go gentle into that good night _…”_

* * *

A poised woman with strawberry blonde hair informed Wanda that anything she wanted was possible to get, through Stark Industries’ resources or otherwise. Wanda knew it was from some sense of guilt on Tony’s part, and while that might explain the generosity, it felt wrong to  benefit from wealth while people in Sokovia were still sifting through the rubble of their homes.

Everyone else had done something to their rooms, even Vision, and it struck her that with a place to call home, she could have done the same. Nothing appealed though, none of the elaborate gadgets or luxuries she’d seen in American catalogs, and it wasn’t as if she had anything from a previous life. Just the jewelry she wouldn’t take off and the photograph Pietro left behind.

It wasn’t until a few months in, that she remembered the mezuzah. Wanda hadn’t had a mezuzah on her door in quite some time. Not since a shell collapsed her family’s home, taking the last bits of their traditions with it. In the ten years since, she never had the chance to light Shabbat candles, or press her fingers against a mezuzah that was hers to keep. That suggested a level of stability she didn’t expect to have again.

But now, there was a room that belonged to her, a common area she was allowed to leave things in, and the tentative idea that she could set down roots here. It wasn’t exactly an habit she was used to. During downtime, however, she’d make a point of  swiping through websites on one of the ubiquitous StarkTablets, looking for artists or websites selling the items a reasonable price.

It was Vision who found her like this, sliding through the walls as if it they were made from water, not concrete and metal. Wanda jumped, one hand alight with magic, the tablet clattering to the floor.

“Vizh!” She hated that it came out as a yelp, but she couldn’t help herself. He startled her, and she didn’t like the feeling. “Just because you _can_ pass through solid objects doesn’t mean you need to do it every time.”

Vision at least had the good grace to look apologetic. _“I am sorry, I did not mean to startle you.”_ He retrieved the tablet, and Wanda snuffed out the scarlet in her hand.  

“It’s alright, but please just knock next time?” She had to remind herself that Vision was still learning about human etiquette, and he was always polite when committing a gaffe.

 _“I will remember.”_ Vision’s irises contracted and expanded momentarily, and Wanda knew it meant he was tapping into the internet directly, looking something up instead of asking a question.

“What is it?”

_“Captain Rogers wished to talk to the team. So I came to find you.”_

Wanda’s lips twitched upward in a slight smile. “And so you did. Let’s go see what Steve wants.”

* * *

 

The first time Wanda’s invited to the Barton farmhouse, she finds herself breathing easier, just from the fresh air and the inherent peace that settles over the landscape, so much like the golden haze that rolls over the plains in the first hours of dawn.

Normally, Wanda would have kept to herself, not wanting to impose where she doesn’t feel she belongs. But neither Clint nor Laura are having any of that.

She finds herself swept up in the familiar chaos of the Barton household, and before long everything becomes easier. She gets wrapped up in whatever imaginings Lila and Cooper dream up for her, and they don’t recoil at the sight of her magic. Laura is patient and kind, accepting all of Wanda almost immediately, without question or fear. And Clint is Clint, not letting her fall back into self pity or grief.

Wanda’s not sure, but she has a feeling they’ve done this before. Regardless, it’s easy to feel welcome here, and part of her loathes going back every time.

It’s after a week of this comfort though, that Wanda notices the difference to her rooms at the compound. Instead of the bare walls and empty bedspread, someone has added a few new pieces. A stack of poetry books sits ready and waiting on the desk, a little blue book with gold lettering right on top.

On one wall someone else has hung the sketch of Pietro, in a spot that is easy to see from almost everywhere in the room. On her nightstand is the photograph of her family, in that same shiny frame. One of Laura's patchwork blankets is laid across a chair, and a few pictures of Nathaniel Pietro are pinned to a cork-board. And last but not least, a mezuzah braces her doorframe, the shimmer of green and silver caught by the morning sunlight.   


Wanda waits until her door is closed and her bags are dropped before the tears start. It's not a promise that she'll be there forever, but it means something more. It's alright to settle down here, there's a team watching her back, letting her be a part of their already situated family. 

That means more than she'll ever say, but she thinks they know,  just the same. 


End file.
